


Grains of the Golden Sand

by Blacktablet (Ishamaeli)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Implied Character Death, Implied Drug Abuse, Kink Meme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-21
Updated: 2012-01-21
Packaged: 2017-10-29 22:13:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/324727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ishamaeli/pseuds/Blacktablet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Sherlock is in Mycroft's head.</i> and <i>What does that make John? A figment of imagination created by Mycroft's figment of imagination?</i> (<a href="http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/3114.html?thread=7223594#t7223594">prompt</a>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grains of the Golden Sand

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by the lovely jacknjill270 who has the patience of a saint.
> 
>  **Disclaimer:** Sherlock and John in their current incarnation belong to Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss and BBC. The title is from a poem by Edgar Allan Poe.

Sherlock crouches on the ground with his magnifying glass nearly shoved into the victim’s mouth. He is sure that the man - a victim of a severe beating, death most likely having resulted from brain hemorrhage due to the injuries - was either drugged or gagged. There are no obvious signs of struggle amidst the bruising and the blood that he can see. He doesn’t have the time to wait for the lab results to confirm his theory but fortunately, Lestrade is in a good mood and lets Sherlock saunter all over his crime scene with minimal protest.

“Found anything yet?”

Sherlock makes a frustrated noise and stands up. “Everything and nothing, Lestrade,” he declares flatly. “It is possible that they used a sedative but there is no tell-tale smell or signs of anything. There are no needle marks that I can find, either.” He and Lestrade share a look. “You will have to wait for the results to get anything concrete.”

“Maybe he was knocked out?” Anderson suggests and ends up being the recipient of Sherlock’s withering glare.

“Good luck finding that injury,” the detective scoffs and gestures at the man’s head. The skull is almost bashed in from behind even though the face is left strangely uninjured. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he just lay down and waited to die!” Sherlock is irritated at himself for not being able to find the solution. Surely there must be one, he just cannot _see_ it.

The victim opens his eyes then, dull and grey with death. “I let them beat me up,” he tells Sherlock in a raspy voice and shrugs. The bones of his broken clavicle grind together audibly. “Saved my wife the pain of identifying me after… I was planning to jump, you see. Who knows when they would’ve found me.”

“Oh,” replies Sherlock and

 

 

Mycroft wakes up

It is still the middle of the night; he can tell by the quietness of the house and the lack of light flooding in through the curtains of his room, covering everything in shadows. Other members of the Holmes family are fast asleep, he knows, digesting the Christmas dinner they consumed that evening.

He wonders if Sherlock would indeed have become a “consulting detective” - whatever that means - had he lived.

It has been years since Mycroft has thought about his brother, and years more still since the police sought out Sherlock’s next of kin and appeared at his door - a female officer with a perpetual frown and an older Detective Inspector - his mind must have plucked the silver-haired man in his dream from the memory. Sherlock had been found dead, the needle next to him not empty but empty enough.

He had heard their words but it had taken a moment to process them, and then the disbelief had set in. He would have known, he had insisted; he _should_ have known. The DI had given him a look that told Mycroft he wasn’t saying anything the man hadn’t heard before. Not that that mattered. Sherlock’s death still burned.

He heaves a soft sigh and stares into middle-distance, ignoring all the input from the room and focusing instead on what is going through his mind. Grief, yes; regret, definitely. The silence is like a muffler and it is making his ears ring. Despite the iron logic of his mind, he cannot shake the feeling that had he reached out to Sherlock, he could have saved his little brother. Their mother will never forgive him for not trying harder.

His body does not ask him for permission when his vision blurs and hot tears slowly slide down his cheeks. It is a physiological reaction to grief, out of his control in the quiet solitude of the night. Some of the salty drops go into his ears and he grimaces at the uncomfortable sensation.

He turns on his right side and

 

 

Jim wakes up

He jerks awake, red lines on his forehead from leaning on his arms on the desk. His eyes look wildly around before he determines that nothing else but the suffocating sorrow of his dream woke him up. His throat closes up from the memory of it and he rubs it lightly to alleviate the pressure.

Nobody else from IT is wandering nearby, so Jim gives the programme running on his computer a cursory look before heading for the loo.

Alone, he splashes cold water on his face and allows himself a moment of confusion. There is no reason to doubt that everything is going along to plan, so why is he dreaming about omnipotent government spooks? It is a product of his subconscious but it bothers him that he can’t pinpoint the reason. Has he missed something, some detail, and the dream is a warning?

The face looking back at him from the mirror looks tired; the lines around his eyes have deepened and the corners of his mouth seem to have turned down for good. No doubt Moran will nag at him when they next see each other.

Well, he says nag; the most the other man will do is point out that even Jim does need to sleep and then bring him a cup of sweet tea. It is not because Moran is afraid of him, no. He knows what Jim will do if he goes too far, oversteps his boundaries, and he doesn’t want for that to happen, not _yet_. But he isn’t afraid of it.

The fact that they both are looking forward to Moran’s death for nearly the same reasons makes Jim grin at the mirror, a hint of delighted anticipation his eyes. One day.

He watches the corners of his mouth droop down and down until his delicate lips are somewhere near the point of his jaw. Bared by the grotesque smile, his white teeth gleam in the halogen light. He grips the edge of the sink harder and

 

 

John wakes up.

The horrifying dream fades from his mind as soon as he moves. White-hot pain flashes through the muscles all the way from his fingertips to his neck, making it impossible to think, let alone grasp dream images fading from his mind like grenade smoke. He doesn’t realise he is moaning in pain until a nurse rushes in and heads straight for the IV drip, adjusting his morphine dosage.

“I’ll let the doctor know that you’re awake, Captain Watson,” he hears once the pain recedes into a dull throb and lets him focus on something else than trying to will himself out of existence.

The nurse checks his condition cursorily but efficiently. She tests his temperature with the back of her hand and peers into his eyes to see if he can follow her gaze. She must have a dozen other wounded soldiers to check upon before the night is over, judging by how tired she looks.

“Press the call button if you need anything,” she tells him before leaving quietly.

John heaves a deep sigh that slides into a choked sob as soon as the nurse is out of sight and the white door snicks shut after her. It is fairly easy for a doctor as good as himself to diagnose a bullet wound and the remnants of a dangerously high fever resulting from infection.

The familiar smells of a hospital – _doing the rounds at Barts, the unsettling scent that always lingered in the morgue_ – comfort him. His shoulder will take time to heal and he will most likely be invalided home, but he is glad because he is still alive. It is both more and less than he hoped for right before he lost consciousness; he recalls that he wanted to come out of the battle _whole_.

The digital clock on the wall tells John that it’s 4:30, early but not early enough to be awake yet. Knowing that he needs to rest to allow his body to heal, he settles down in a position that won’t aggravate his shoulder further - a difficult feat for sure, but achievable thanks to the morphine flowing into his veins - and lets his eyes fall closed.

When John finally falls asleep, his dreams are blessedly free of tall strangers with pale eyes and dark-haired men in expensive Westwood suits, and the red digits on the wall read 4:01 in the morning.

 

 

 

You wake up.


End file.
